Penelope Health's $100M Bet on Fixing Healthcare's Hidden Rules

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

Imagine trying to figure out whether your health insurance will actually cover a procedure. Now imagine that puzzle changes every few weeks, varies by insurer, and lives across thousands of scattered documents. That's the daily reality for healthcare companies in America — and it's exactly the mess Penelope Health just raised $100 million to untangle. The London-based company announced a €87 million funding commitment (about $100 million) alongside a new partnership with HealthTech infrastructure platform Thoreau. Together, they're building a shared layer for real-time payments and clinical rules — basically, a common language that payers and providers can both speak. ### Who's Backing the Round The funding came from Thoreau, joined by existing investors Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments (BHI), Twine Ventures, and Seedcamp. That mix of new strategic partners and returning backers says something: the people who've watched this company grow are doubling down, not cashing out. "The rules that determine whether care is covered by insurance are foundational to the healthcare system, yet they remain opaque, fragmented, difficult to interpret, and are constantly changing," says Dr. Sohum Patel, CEO of Penelope Health. "Penelope was founded to turn that complexity into a dependable, up-to-date reference that healthcare companies can use in real time." ### A Wave of Healthcare Infrastructure Bets Penelope's raise isn't happening in a vacuum. Investment in European healthcare infrastructure and AI tools has been flowing steadily, and 2026 is shaping up to be a busy year. A handful of comparable rounds tells the story: - Stockholm-based Tandem Health pulled in €86.5 million - Berlin-based Recare raised up to €37 million - Barcelona-based Health Force secured €4.2 million for AI agents that handle prior-authorization checks and claims - London-based Semble brought in €34.7 million to scale its healthcare management platform - Flexzo AI landed €10.3 million for agentic healthcare workforce tech Add those up, and you're looking at roughly €182.5 million across just a small slice of the market. The theme is consistent: investors are betting on tools that cut administrative drag out of healthcare. ### Why the Rules Matter More Than You'd Think Here's the thing most people don't realize — the biggest bottleneck in healthcare often isn't medicine. It's paperwork. Coverage policies determine whether a treatment gets paid for, and those policies are buried in a web of documents that change constantly. Penelope's platform flips that. Instead of companies building one-off connections to every payer and manually hunting through policy documents, they get a single connection any system can use. Right now, the platform covers policies for over 200 million Americans, spanning more than 15,000 procedures and drug codes. "Realising our vision requires a deep technical understanding of constantly evolving payer rules," says Mattijs De Paepe, CTO of Penelope Health. "We believe that a shared infrastructure layer can remove administrative burden for both payers and providers." ### The People Behind the Platform Penelope was co-founded in 2025 by Patel and De Paepe — a pairing that blends clinical experience with serious engineering chops. Before founding the company, Patel practiced in inpatient and outpatient settings across the UK's National Health Service at the Royal Free London and University College London hospital systems. He saw firsthand how administrative complexity gets in the way of patient care. De Paepe spent nearly four years at Via Transportation, where he built machine-learning systems for the company's transit products. Different industry, same core skill: turning messy, real-world data into something systems can actually use. ### What Comes Next The new funding will go toward building products that make navigating payer requirements less of a headache. With Thoreau on board, the goal is bigger than any single workflow — it's about creating shared infrastructure that serves both sides of the healthcare equation. If Penelope pulls it off, the payoff isn't just faster claims processing. It's fewer hours spent on hold, fewer denied claims, and more time for the thing everyone actually cares about: patient care.